Gemma's Music Column

Gemma reviews Matchbook Romance – Voices

The third album from Matchbook Romance is an amazing metamorphosis from previous album 'Your Story, My Alibis'. The New York quartet fought hard to leave their post hardcore/ screamo roots behind and in the process transformed from a reasonable, noteworthy group to an outstanding and paramount alternative band. Quintessentially heavy but with a greater range than they've ever displayed before, 'Voices' is the perfect emo/ rock experience to take the listener through a myriad of negative human emotions.

The melodic and despairing 'Goody, like two shoes' - with lines such as 'nurse, something for the pain and something to make this go away' - is definitely one of the satisfactorily indulgent emotive highlights of the album for me, as is the powerful, anger fuelled 'You can run but we'll find you'. They are, however, certainly no better musically than any other song on the album: the ballad 'Wish you were here', reminiscent of Seafood, has emotively melancholic lyrics and is surprisingly understated
for the band; 'Monsters', the big single released, is oozing energy and definitely a big mosh pit filler... I could continue for a long time... This is an album absolutely void of filler tracks and an amazingly successful transformation for Matchbook. Well done guys – keep up the good work!